It is a really good idea to align yourself with good stories in your pregnancy and positive words. Many beautiful parents have allowed us to share their private experiences with you.Here is a small selection.

 

Zarah’s Story

Our bubba was due on the 14th February however she had other ideas.. On Wednesday 6th Feb at approximately 1am my waters broke – a call to the hospital confirmed it was ok to stay at home until morning. Slightly in shock that our baby would be arriving in the next 24 hours or so we promptly finished packing our hospital bags and did our best to get back to sleep! No labour by morning, but a trip to the hospital was necessary to check that all was ok. So we went to the Doctor and the Doctor said – sorry love but the cervix is not ripe yet! So back home for us with fingers crossed that my body would wise up and that labour would commence!

Sleep was broken at 1.45am that night when the surges (contractions) began.. nothing major, so I just went back to sleep.. by 4.15am the surges were 10 minutes apart. I was surprisingly calm and breathed through the surges as I had practiced and we began to get ready to go, I had a shower and some breakfast and then by 7am we were back at the hospital as per the Doctor’s orders – surges 6 minutes apart.. Yaaay – it was all happening no need for intervention! However our bubble was burst when we learnt that my cervix had still not begun to dilate. We had a good chat to our Doctor and given that 36 hrs had passed it was agreed that a little helping hand would be the best option for the bubz – so a small dose of oxytocin was administered to augment the labour.. Not ideal, as I was attached to a drip, but we put the baby’s health first as we didn’t want to risk infection.

Our Doctor left us with our midwife and we immediately took a liking to her. We explained that we had been learning ‘relaxation techniques’; she asked if the course we had done was hypnobirthing, and was very encouraging of the practice and of our preparation to assist a natural and hopefully intervention free birth. We then discussed our birth preferences with her, which including using the words ‘surge’ instead of ‘contractions’ and ‘sensation’ instead of ‘pain’. We also highlighted that we preferred that no offers or suggestions for interventions such as gas, epidural or pethidine were to be made unless requested by me. The midwife was very respectful of our wishes and I proceeded to get comfortable in our new environment as the surges increased over time.

Within 20 minutes of the augmentation surges were only a few minutes apart and the real deal of labour was underway… during that 20 minutes we had established that our midwife liked to travel – a favourite past time of ours as well. So we chatted about our experiences of Turkey and Egypt and other countries during the 1st stage of my labour. It was pretty relaxed and calm – I breathed through the surges, standing, leaning over the bed and looking out the window and the three of us talked travel. As the surges got closer Danny and the midwife talked while I gazed silently out the window, listening to their voices and breathing as necessitated, and of course interrupting Danny if there was an important travel detail he had missed!

As the surges became more intense I changed positions as suggested by our midwife. We had set up a playlist of the affirmations and relaxation music we had received during the course and played this in the background, along with other music we had. Everything was under control, and Danny and I were coping well so the midwife left us alone. We worked together as a team, Danny providing supportive words and encouragement, and practicing a bit of light touch massage during the surges. I was getting closer to transition – the surges were becoming more intense. I worked on remaining focused despite that there was a woman in the next room screaming as if being tortured, which to be honest, started to make me feel nervous. I was getting tired due to lack of sleep over the past two nights and the labour was becoming more intense. With encouragement from Danny, I breathed slow, deep breaths. Tears started to roll down my face at that stage, although I remained very quiet and still focused, I tried to block out the other woman’s voice and concentrated on not letting the fear of the unknown creep in. Danny thought it was time to call the midwife back. After a quick assessment from her, she informed us that 1st stage labour was over and that I was in transition. No wonder things were getting a little tough! She told me not to worry about the other woman, she too was in transition, and her way of coping was to yell! AWESOME! My tool was going to be focused, slow breathing! Apparently I had gotten through 1st stage very quickly and the midwife congratulated us on how calm we had remained. I was doing brilliantly she assured me and suggested a hot bath might help me relax through the next stage.

It is amazing where your mind goes when you are in labour. I can clearly remember thinking about what Andy had told us about transition. The common thoughts shared by women in labour about ‘wanting to go home’, ‘I’ve had enough’ etc often occur during that stage. I also remembered her telling us that once in transition you were on the home stretch and that the baby would be coming very soon. These thoughts cemented my determination to focus.

The hot bath worked for me.. I felt more relaxed, I held Danny’s arm and the side of the bath, and in my head I began a mantra – ‘pressure not pain’ – ‘pressure not pain’. I am not sure where that came from, but remember thinking how my cervix was opening and I was visualising the picture we were shown during the course of the cervix dilating and about what I had learnt about how the muscles work during dilation. I wanted to work with my body, which I knew I could do as I was equipped with the understanding about what was happening physiologically to my body. At one stage I turned to my midwife and said, “I don’t think I can do this for much longer, I want to go home” – I was getting tired, and she calmly replied to me “we can talk about it after this next surge, just keeping breathing like you have been, you are doing really well’”. and then I would breath through the surge, thinking of that bell shaped curve – intensity rising – peak – and then declining – over.. max 1 minute.. and then another surge, and another.. I don’t know how many there were, I remember saying ‘this sux’ at one stage, which, for some reason is what I had previously (during pregnancy) visualised that I would say instead of swearing! (goes to show how strong visualisation is!) and then I felt this incredible need to push. “I want to push”, I said. “Good”, replied midwife, “that’s your baby wanting to be born, go ahead and push”. So I did and as I did I felt a strong sense of relief. I had something new to focus on. I had got through 1st stage and transition with help of Danny and my supportive midwife encouraging me to relax and breath; no intervention had been asked for, nor had any been suggested.

Although I always found it hard to believe that the delivery stage would be easier than transition I soon learned it was. We moved from the bath onto the bed and the midwife paged my Doctor. I had 1cm more to dilate, and got through that in no time, it was time to deliver my baby. My Doctor came back on the scene, he congratulated us on getting through the labour so well; the augmentation can make things intense, and given it was also my 1st baby, he was impressed that we had managed without intervention and that the labour has progressed in such a short amount of time. It was around 1pm and he said he hadn’t expected to deliver our baby until around 4pm that day. The pep talk was over, time to concentrate and push for delivery, as Andy had described it, it felt like a massive Chinese burn, I told my Doctor this and he commented that the best way to stop all that was ‘to not be pregnant anymore!’ Good and valid point, I thought, and with one last strong, determined push our baby girl was born!

Our baby gasped for air and with a loud cry before her body had even emerged! It was amazing… my Doctor put my hands on her little body as he guided her out and onto my chest.. There she was – 7 days early – alert and so alive and well!

The whole thing (from augmentation) took 5 hours so I consider myself lucky..! No stitches required as only a small graze had occurred – luckier still.. !!

Zarah is now 3 months old and is the most precious person in our lives. We are truly in love!

On a side note – I also used the epi-no – which my doctor had recommended, I found it to be a great tool to prepare myself mentally and physically for the birth. I experienced no tearing either so I feel it was a good investment, coupled with the hypnobirthing training. Good luck to all you mum-to-bes out there.

Michelle’s Birth Story

Rowan Tonissen ~ born 15/7/07, weighing in at 3.805 kg (8 lb 6 oz.).

Rowan started his final journey into the world sometime Friday, and after getting stuck in a moment he couldn’t get out of, he just wanted to tear down the walls that held him inside. Sometimes when there is no way forward and no turning back, you can see only one way out, and the only way is up, and so Rowan was safely delivered by caesarian section almost 2 days after the journey began.

We wanted to pass on a bit more about our thoughts on how important hypnobirthing was to us. We received a number of replies to the email saying how calm/serene/peaceful/tranquil we all looked after our “ordeal” ~ we don’t think it was an ordeal, but that is the word others used! We believe this was only possible because of hypnobirthing ~ and the relaxing environment that Andy created and her openness to share hypnobirthing/birth experiences to encourage us in a safe, peaceful, calm birth. Unfortunately Rowan had 3 things against him – he was posterior position, Mum has a slightly small pelvic opening, and Dad has a big head! The reality is that not even hypnobirthing or all the power of positive visualization in the world can bring about the impossible, but there is no question that hypnobirthing was absolutely critical to our capacity to get through it all and end up with the photo you now have. Michelle was having surges around 5 minutes or less from mid Friday to 4 am Sunday – about 40 hours, along with an oxytocin drip for about 5 of those hours bringing the rate up to 5 per 10 minutes (1 minute on, 1 minute relax) and increase the intensity to help things along (it didn’t!). In all of those hours her only relief was a hot water bottle, my hand on her back and my other hand on her shoulder. Apparently the sensations were fairly intense, but she breathed beautifully through them all. On only a few occasions did she almost lose control, and that was usually when a midwife was trying to talk to her or me during a surge (one of them wasn’t really sensitive to the fact that I was an essential part of the process and she couldn’t talk to either of us during a surge), or I wasn’t quick enough with the hand on the shoulder/back.

Unfortunately P.J, our obstetrician was heading off for conference leave, but P.E filled in and did a magnificent job. Totally appreciative of our desire for as natural birth as possible, he gave Michelle every chance to achieve that, but it just wasn’t going to happen. The last phase prior to the caesar was to use an epidural to see if that would help relax everything and increase the dilation beyond the 2 cm it had been for more than 12 hours. At the end she was almost fully dilated but Rowan was still too high to safely bring down. During the caeser it became apparent that he was totally stuck, with a bit of a conehead from trying to force his way through.

Rowan is definitely a hypnobub! He came out shouting (as you would!), but soon settled when he was wrapped and was wide awake taking in his new surrounds, making eye contact and generally being adorable. Because Michelle was in recovery for about 20-30 minutes, it meant I got to hold him for the first 30 minutes of his life, and we could stare into each others eyes. All this time he was looking at me, but looking for Mum for a feed, which happened soon after Michelle came to the room.

We are expecting our second child in October and intend to use hypnobirth again. Our experience is a bit different to what everyone is hoping for, but shows that if things go a little bit crazy, hypnobirthing is still incredibly valuable. Rowan LOVES rainbows!

Henry’s Birth Story

As planned I had a wonderful birth and now have a very happy and handsome little boy Henry.

At about 4 days overdue my Ob told me we would need to induce as Henry had started to run out of fluid. He booked me in for an inducement the next day at 8am.

I was keen to avoid being induced so I spent the next 12 hours listening to my CDs, eating curry, going for walks etc, until finally at 11pm I started contractions. I had been having lots of braxton hicks that week so I didn’t think I was really in labour. My husband went back to bed at about 11:30 and I sat up listening to my CDs and doing breathing. By 3 I knew it was all on so we drove into Freemasons.

We had lovely nurses and all went well and was very relaxed. They called my Ob to let him know I was in but that I was nowhere near birthing. The doc dropped in on his way to a Caesar at 7:30. By then the sensations had amped up and they were surprised to note I was all ready to go. At one point one of the theatre nurses poked her head in to tell him they were ready for him at the Caesar and he told them he’d be done in 5 minutes. Later on he told me he knew it would be longer but it was all the encouragement I needed, at 8:05 Henry was born.

We used the CDs through the whole birth, I also found the visualising and counting in and out really helped. Reto was surprisingly magnificent, especially at the light touch massage. But I think the main thing I got from hypnobirthing was a positive attitude. I really looked forward to my birth and still think of it as a really enjoyable day, especially considering the wonderful result.

Oh yeah, and no drugs, intervention, stress or stitches!

Thank you Andy for all of your support and encouragement.

Love lizzie and Henry.

Dulcie’s Story

I started having braxton hicks over the weekend. On the tuesday I went to my Dr (Pregs) and told him I was having back spasms every twenty minutes or so. He wasn’t that interested. Tuesday PM I went for a 5km walk, not really knowing what to think, though stopping every so often to let the back spasms pass.

On the Wednesday morning it was occuring every ten minutes. Lars went and bought me any food my heart desired and waited out the front of JB HiFi till it opened so he could buy me every episode of the Vicar of Dibly (Dawn French). Spent the rest of the day on the couch watching the Vicar and laughing a lot.

Lars came home at midday and I cooked him lunch. I told him that the back spasms were a bit much and that I had made an appt at the acupuncturist for 4pm. Lars drove me to appt. My acupuncturist, Daryl broke the news to me that, with surges 8 minutes apart, I was in labour. He gave me a treatment to relieve back spasms and warned me that it could speed up the labour.

At 6.30pm I ate a full dinner, including a half glass of wine. At 7.30pm I was on all fours and asked Lars to call the hospital (surges 5 minutes apart). Lars supported me by just pressing on my forehead (hand must be cold).

Nurse at St V’s told me to come in. Got into car at 8pm. Driving there I felt so calm. It felt like it had all stopped and I told Lars to turn around and go back home as I felt silly going to the hospital and not really needing to go. Lars suggested we keep driving a little. I then felt a distinct pop and my waters broke.

Parked in the car park at St V’s and clamoured to the hospital entrance (wet pants and all). As I was doing this all the pregnant girls from their birthing class came walking towards us. I must of scared the shit out of them! Got to reception and Lars patiently waited for the woman to stop talking (I wanted to kill him). Luckily receptionist saw me and sent me straight up. Meanwhile, two guys tried to get in the lift with us? Receptionist told them to get out before I had a chance to tell them myself.

Admitted to labour ward at 8.45pm, 5cm dilated. Thats when things went full steam ahead. The surges didn’t really stop and I was tearing hair out and asking for an epidural. At this stage Lars just sat there patiently, he knew better then to touch me. However, at about 9.40pm (according to Lars) I was wanting to go home and I wanted to do a poo. Midwife picked up on it straight away. Luckily Pregs was already there. He came in and was shocked to see Dulcie’s head.

After pushing for about 15 minutes (which I actually enjoyed, it felt so purposeful) Dulcie Bell was born. Although she didn’t attach (being so small) she gave it a red hot go and was so alert.

I honestly owe my experience to your classes and my daily relaxation hour (with birthing affirmations and rainbow relaxation).

I’m very proud of my birth and my little girl.

-Monique

Matthew’s Story

There is so much to say about Matthew’s birth I could go on forever. I wanted to do Hypnobirthing because I was afraid of being in pain when I gave birth but I didn’t want myself or my baby to be groggy with drugs either. My husband Greg didn’t want to be at the birth at first because he was afraid of seeing me in pain and didn’t want me yelling and swearing at him. He agreed to do the Hypnobirthing training with me when I told him that I would need someone to support me. After we had done the training his fears disappeared and he was determined to be at the birth!

My waters broke at 2 am five days before my due date. I was excited and disappointed all at once – Greg wasn’t due to arrive in Melbourne for another two days. I had been so convinced that I would go over the due date that I hadn’t arranged Hypnobirthing training for my back-up birthing partner, my friend Trish. About half an hour after my waters broke, I started having surges. All the practice I had done really paid off. I remained calm and relaxed and with each surge I focussed on my breathing. I rang Greg who was in the UK to let him know what had happened. While we were chatting I started timing my surges and realised they were three minutes apart already. I thought I’d better head to hospital right away so I said good-bye and phoned Greg’s sister Julie to come and get me.

Once we were at the hospital I phoned Trish to ask her to come to the hospital. I had to give her on the spot Hypnobirthing training! She was amazing. I couldn’t have done it without her. Having a partner to help with the Hypnobirthing process was essential. I taught her some of the deepening techniques and she picked up the concepts very quickly. She knew beforehand that I was going to use Hypnobirthing but she hadn’t realised how effective it was. I used no pain relief at all. All I used was a hot pack to ease the feeling of pressure that I had in my pelvis. I complained about this pressure feeling to Trish. She was great – she reminded me that this meant that my cervix was dilating and that the birth was progressing normally. Trish told me that some of the midwives didn’t believe I was giving birth because I was so relaxed. Trish is a GP with a diploma in obstetrics and has been at hundreds of births before. She told me that she had never seen anyone so relaxed when they were giving birth. During my surges it looked like I was asleep and it didn’t look like I was in any pain at all. She said I was even more pain-free than the women she’d seen with epidurals. According to her it was like I had an epidural with a general anaesthetic on top!

I was so glad that I had spent the previous few weeks listening to the affirmations and the relaxation and doing the fear release. I had no anxiety at all during the whole birthing process. I was sceptical at first about the affirmations – I didn’t see how they could work, but I persisted with them anyway. I have to say that every single one of them came true. I will definitely do them again next time. I was also glad that I’d prepared a birth plan. It meant that I was allocated a midwife who was experienced with Hypnobirthing and who was respectful of my wishes. Some things were a little bit different to what I had expected. I had planned to use lots of different positions – squatting, sitting on the fitness ball, kneeling and so on. When it came to the time I found that my surges were far too intense in these positions and the only position that worked for me was lying on my side which I ended up doing the whole time.

Once I’d reached the second stage of labour, the feeling of pressure in my pelvis disappeared. I felt fantastic! The midwife laughed because when she got me to lie on my back I said “This is so relaxing!” I have seen women in the second stage of labour abusing their husbands and even worse, cursing their babies for not coming out fast enough. I didn’t want this for my family so I invented my own affirmations so that I would treat my husband and my baby with love and respect. This came true like all the other affirmations – during the transition phase I told Trish how much I loved my husband. As Matthew came closer and closer to being born I encouraged him in between each surge, telling him how close we were to seeing each other and how I was trying really hard to help him out. It was very special. I’ll never forget how wonderful it was to see him for the first time and hold him against my chest and to hear his cries. It was wonderful to see him so healthy and I was really happy that I had been able to give him a drug-free birth. The only disappointment was that Greg couldn’t be there to witness it first hand. I feel so sorry for him, that he missed out on such a beautiful experience.

Rosa’s Story

My waters broke at 38 weeks (i was working at that moment), on thursday afternoon. That was all, no tightenings or whatsoever so i went home, pack my bags and went for a walk hoping delivery will start but nothing happened. The next morning i went to see the doctor and she booked me for an induction on the saturday morning.

I was really upset about that because i was hoping to go into labour by myself and if not, i wanted to wait 48 hours, that means until saturday afternoon, but it was not possible because usually inductions have to start early in the morning… It was only 7 hours of diference between the time they gave me and the time i wanted, but for me it was important… Anyway, we went to the hospital on saturday morning, all resigned about the fact that i was going to be induced but it turns out they had no beds!! We were so happy!!! We went to brunetti’s to have breakfast and at that time i start having some mild cramps like a period. I had also a bit of bleeding so i came back to the hospital to have the ctg done… The ctg was perfect and when we saw on it that there was uterine activity every 6 minutes, we start having hope that things will happen spontaneously. We were all excited!!!!! So we went for a walk and every time i was having a tightening, it was like a big party for us as it meant one step further away from the induction!!!

Eventually i was admitted at 3 pm and yes, i was already in labour (2-3 cm dilated, fully effaced) so i skipped the induction!!!! I read on the internet about the way some women doing hypnobirthing set their minds to start on labour on a specific day, and i am now convinced that this is possible.!!!! We prepared the room with candles, relaxation music and the hypnobirthing tapes. And i have to say that time really was flying… I was very relaxed. At 7 pm they examined me and i was 5 cm. Shortly afterwards i felt some pressure but nothing major. I think it was around 9 pm that things started to change significantly. The pressure was really strong, i couldn’t breathe as i was doing before, i lost concentration… This hour was the only one a bit tough, and finally i told the midwife to check my dilatation because i wanted to push… I was 10 cm and in 3 pushes i had the baby!!! She was born at 10 pm. A beautiful, healthy baby girl, 2850 gr!!!!! It was so beautiful!!! Oscar had the chance to help deliver the baby, and i didn’t require any stitches!!!… She was amazing, so alert… The three of us spent 2 hours just in peace, observing, amazed with everything… Afterwars i felt really well, had my shower, was walking around… I felt i was ready to leave the hospital already but we waitted until next morning so all the paperwork could be done and the midwives could teach me some baby care…

I hope i didn’t bore you with this long explanation!!! I want to thank you for all your help, support and caring attention, i know you were worried about me because i was a bit anxious so i hope that will make you happy and eventhough i am sure you know already, will reassure you about the wonderful job you do!!!! I was even considering myself to do hypnobirthing training at some point, because there is none in spain and i though it would be a good idea to do it before i come back (probably in 1 year)!!!!!

I apologize again about my english…

Many thangs again for helping me to have the most amazing and beautiful experience of my life!!!!

Kisses,

Oscar, rosa and indira

P.s. please, do you mind to tell me what should i do in case i decide later to prepare myself for a hypnobirthing practitioner ? Thank you,thank you,thank you…

Saul’s Birth

My waters broke at 36 weeks- Ben and I were excited and a little anxious as Saul was not yet due for a month, so we phoned the birth centre and I was immediately transferred to the maternity ward. I remained in the hospital for 5 nights all the time feeling pressure from medical doctors to be induced. I didn’t want to go down this route as Saul was considered premature and I wanted to keep him in the womb- the best place for him I felt, and this view was also supported by some nurses including the special care nurse that I spoke to. At this stage I was very upset at the prospect of having to be induced and also unable to leave the hospital environment. 3 days prior to Saul’s arrival I had begun to experience `sporadic labour’ so my surges were around 10 minutes apart for all this time. This is when the HypnoBirthing techniques proved a godsend!! I was able to sleep through surges and get enough rest to keep going. By the 5th day I agreed to an induction although I was already on my way (5cms dilated). Saul was born 8 hours later. I found the breathing exercises got me through, that along with the love & support of Ben who prompted me on several occasions. I did not need any pain relief/ gas etc. throughout the whole process and am so pleased that I was able to have a natural birth in the end with a very healthy baby boy 7pounds 7ounces . Saul fed straight away and we bonded immediately.

Jane

Christine and Alan’s Story

Chris woke around 12:30am when her waters broke (5 weeks before her due date). We called the hospital soon after expecting to have to go in for a check and then to come home. However the hospital was not confident that it was the actual waters breaking and advised to put a pad on and call back in an hour with hopefully a sample of the fluid to bring in.

Chris could feel that the birth was starting so we spent that hour finalising packing. When we called back we spoke to a different nurse who was adamant that it was not labour and to go back to bed and to take a couple of panadol despite no pain involved (which Chris ignored). We weren’t particularly impressed by this midwife’s attitude but did not let it negatively impact our experience.

By 3am Chris was well into labour and woke me up. She was a little concerned that she could not get in the zone so we focused on deep breathing and this helped her relax. She was feeling pressure especially an urge to defecate but no pain as such.

I began timing her surges and they were lasting around 50 secs with about 7min between each one. We rang the hospital again only to be told labour typically lasts between 11 and 15hrs and that given Chris was not in any significant discomfort she was not in labour. We got the impression they measure labour by the amount of pain the mother is in, given that Chris was not screaming into the phone they had trouble believing she was actually in labour.

Over the next hour the surges strengthened and frequency came down to around 3mins with duration extending to 60secs. By 4:30 it was clear we should go into the hospital and thankfully they agreed. We arrived at 5:00am where on examination Chris was found to be 7cm dilated. This was the nurse who had not believed Chris was in labour and her attitude changed dramatically as she immediately rang our Obstetrician and organized us a birthing suite.

We then got a new (& nice) midwife who picked up the fact we were “HypnoBirthing” and pretty much left us to ourselves (apart from routine checking of Lara’s condition) which was surprising, but not concerning and allowed Chris to concentrate on breathing.

Chris lay on the bed for the whole of her labour, first and home and then at hospital and found this to be the most comfortable position, she used an ipod to listen to the HypnoBirthing® and relaxation music. We had expected to be more mobile and to use the shower and swiss ball but Chris never felt the need and given the speed of the labour there was no need to use gravity.

Chris’s Obstetrician arrived at 5:45am and soon after Chris commenced pushing with technique coaching by the obstetrician, as he believes pushing is required rather than using the J breathing alone. We had full confidence in him especially as it was he who had referred us to you in the first place.

Lara Olivia was born at 6:44am. She was very pink and cried immediately. Lara weighed in at 2.41kg, and was 47.5 cm long.

Chris felt she did an amazing job and got a real sense of achievement from having a natural birth with no drugs required at all.

It really works!!!

Saskia’s Birth

My birth experience was all good. Saskia arrived 2.5 weeks early, weighing 7.4lbs after my water breaking, then contractions started the following day, my labour was 6 hours in total. I used gas/air and focused on the breathing that classes taught me. My husband said I was not screaming or overly vocal, and it was the most fantastic thing we have done as a couple.

She is the most wonderful little baby and sleeps for 12 hrs solid every night from about 3 months old. She is a calm and relaxed baby, and we feel incredibly lucky to have her. I am not sure just how many kisses she gets from us each day.

Toni

Ralph’s Birth

Hi Andy,

Ralph is doing very well despite a bit of a slow start and some problems with feeding. We’re utterly besotted.

I ended up being induced at 42 weeks and my body really wasn’t ready to dilate. Peter ended up giving me 3 applications of gel and the maximum dosage to get things moving. Long story short, it was 44 hours between the first application and Ralph’s arrival.

I didn’t sleep during that time and was having strong sensations from very early on. I used the hypnobirthing techniques to breath through them and conserve my energy. By the 2nd night my waters finally broke but my odds of a vaginal birth shortened from 50:50 to 30:70. Ralph simply wasn’t dropping and I wasn’t dilating. However, I laboured with difficulty all through that night,requiring a shot of pethadine and the gas.

By daybreak he’d made his way into the pelvic cavity, but I was so exhausted that I needed some help. I asked for an epidural, which then enabled Pete to give me some oxytocin and have a last ditch try to help me dilate and avoid a caeser. Thankfully it worked and we all beamed when he said that I was going to have the vaginal birth I wanted.

The delivery was great. I used the birthing breathing with great effect, but again, needed some help towards the end. I did most of the pushing with some assistance from Pete. He then told me to reach down and I picked Ralph up. That was the happiest moment of my life, along with our wedding day.

I believe that I would’ve been caesered if I didn’t have the hypnobirthing training and that it complimented the medical assistance that I required for such a long and difficult labour.

Also, I had no stitches even though I had a forceps delivery.The Epi-No is the best invention ever and would encourage you to continue to recommend it to your clients.

Jane

Robyn and Adam’s Story

Adam and I are just so pleased with how Mia’s birth went. It was exactly how we wanted it. After having such a wonderful pregnancy it was great to have such a positive birth experience.

Here’s our (long) birth story!

After attending the classes, we practiced some of the relaxation techinques and both finished reading the book. We didn’t practice as often as we should though. In the last few weeks, once I had finished work, I tried to at least do my affirmations daily. Some of them were more significant to me than others so I tended to repeat these in my head when I thought of them. When using the CDs I tried to visualise the baby moving down into position and I am sure that afterwards she was lower than before! I also tried to visualise my cervix ‘softening’ as she moved down.

I had been getting braxton hicks for weeks but from about 37 weeks they were coming all the time. At 38 weeks I mentioned this to my OB(Sophie LeOng) and she thought she should check me out. At this stage I was already 1cm dilated and the cervix was very soft. Sophie was about to go on leave so told me to keep my legs crossed till she got back but that she definitely didn’t exxpect me to go over.

So, I just kept doing what I was doing. We went for lots of walks and I kept doing the hypnobirthing most days. I woke up on Sunday morning with more of a crampy feeling and I knew things were different. At this stage (6am)they were regular surges at 5mins apart and so we called the hospital at 10am as things were progressing. They told us that we sounded like we were coping well at home so if we were happy to, we should stay there for now and call them back in 1.5-2hrs. So we just kept going about things as normal. I bounced on the fitball at the computer and Adam was doing the dishes!

By 12pm, Adam was getting a bit worried so I called Mitcham again and they suggested I come in. We got there at about 1pm and the surges were about 2-3mins apart in the car. At this stage I was still coping with them really well and just kept thinking they were surely going to get much worse!

It was lovely and peaceful in the birthing suites as we were the only ones there. We were monitored for about 15mins and all was going well. Afterwards we basically just sat on the couch and breathed! Adam kept talking me through and once again I just thought we must only me a couple of cms and it would surely get worse.

Sophie turned up at around 3pm and after checking me said I was already 7cms! I was so happy to hear that! I stayed up on the bed after that, propped up with a bean bag and they left Adam and I alone (besides popping in to check on us every now and then). We just kept doing what we were doing. I barely said a word through the whole labour – even once I hit transition.

Not long after I felt the urge to push and my body just started doing it! I tried to think about breathing the baby down as in the hypnobirthing, but didn’t feel this was working that well. Instead I pushed when I felt I should, the midwife was great in not ‘encouraging’ me to push when she thought I should.

So, after 37 mins of pushing, little Mia Amélie was born after a 6.5 hour labour. I had not used any pain relief – not even a heat pack or hot bath/shower – just the hypnobirthing techniques.

It was such a wonderful experience for all of us and the midwife and OB were thrilled with how well it all went. It was great not to have anything to recover from after the birth.

I have been telling everyone how much I loved my labour which no one believes is possible!We will deifintely be back for another and will be using the hypno again.

Sorry about the long story, just wanted to let you know how well it all worked for us.

Kind regards,

Robyn, Adam and Mia

Adam’s perspective of Birthing:

For me the experience was fantastic because I was able to take an active part in Mia’s birth, as well as support Robyn during her pregnancy.

Practicing the different exercises leading up to the birth gave Robyn and I some important time together (in hindsight this was great because we don’t have much alone time anymore).

During the birth it was great to have something to do, looking after the music and talking Robyn through the visualizations and actually feeling that I was helping.

Having practiced the relaxation exercises and worked out a birth plan meant that the two of us were able to control the birth, rather than be controlled by the hospital staff, and remain calm and relaxed the whole time.

Being able to be us